Neighbors on Camano Island say their houses are in danger and parts of their property are destroyed-- and Island County is at least partially responsible.
There's a lot more behind the water on 15 acres off Arrowhead Road than just your typical fall flooding.
That water is supposed to be kept in a retention pond, then travel through an underground pipe and into Puget Sound. But that pipe has collapsed and now neighbors are trying to save their properties with a pump and contractors they’re paying for out of their own pockets.
Marty Dirks and his neighbors say they've been asking for Island County's help for two decades.
"Right now, they're proposing to take out my wall and run a 400-foot pipe out here,” to the Sound behind Dirks' house.
“It's on their radar, but two or three years down the road--of course that does us no good now."
Mike Mouracade—three houses down from Dirks -- has been inviting Boy and Girl Scouts to grow vegetables on eight acres of his land for 17 years.
“This is our greenhouse where we keep our tools and seeds,” Mouracade explained, walking us through at least a foot of water now covering the greenhouse floor.
The fruits of his labor are not for him.
"Everything we have goes to the food bank, we take between 4,000 and 5,000 pounds a year of very high quality organic vegetables,” Mouracade said.
Now, Mouracade says much of that soil will be impossible to plant in the spring.
"We'll lose about 500 yards per acre and we have eight acres."
We called Island County Public Works and were told the water comes from private property and is now spilling onto private property. And unless the homeowners apply for an emergency permit, they aren't allowed to rebuild the pipe.
“For some reason they don't want to declare it an emergency,” Dirks told us.
So now he is pumping away what's quickly becoming a dire situation on “Lake Dirks.”
Neighbors say the county did agree to send a pump that pulls water out into the Sound like the one provided by the private contractor but that won’t arrive until Thursday, and only if the county commissioners agree to it.
Public Works says there is only one county-owned pump on Camano Island and if there is a bigger emergency, it will be diverted there.
Trending on kiro7.com
- Sequim woman crashes stolen truck while fleeing from police
- Seattle inventor fighting "porch pirates" stalking on "package theft Wednesday"
- Travelers say gridlock at Sea-Tac caused by bottleneck at rideshare area
- Seattle area home prices surge for biggest growth in US
- Plane with Brazilian soccer team crashes in Colombia
Cox Media Group
